A BRADFORD grandmother who has outlived a doctor's cancer prognosis says she is too busy to die because she is raising funds to help send a disabled relative to China.

Diane Harrison, 55, from Horton Bank Top, with the help of family and friends, has vowed to raise the last £10,000 needed to get her cousin's husband Stan Padley to Beijing in January for stem-cell treatment designed to restore his voice and help him eat again.

He was left brain-damaged after a complication arising from a hip operation in Chesterfield in 2008.

Despite her own health struggle, she has lived longer than the 12 months or less that doctors had feared and has already raised almost £3,000 at an auction and race night last month at Central Division Working Men's Club, in Clayton Lane.

Her next event with sister-in-law Mandy Harrison will be a big brand fashion show on Monday, September 22, again at the Central Working Men's Club from 7.30pm, tickets will be £3 available on the door.

Mrs Harrison has refused any more chemotherapy, instead relying on 24 painkillers a day.

She said: "I don't have time to be poorly. I have off days but the pain management works most of the time. I didn't want to spend my last months in pain and being sickly . I was hanging on to see my first grandchild be born and now Jacob is seven months-old - at this rate I'll be here for his first birthday as well!

"I've passed the 12 month mark and still got lots to do. Hopefully the fashion show will bring in a few hundred pounds for Stan and then I'll think of something else to do to make more money for him. I'm determined to help get the last £10,000."

Mrs Harrison, who has a 33-year-old son John Thompson and has also previously raised £5,400 with a Macmillan coffee morning, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in February 2012 and had major surgery a month later.

She had chemotherapy for a few months that summer and her condition improved.

But in January 2013, after discovering she had the BRCA1 cancer gene, she had a double mastectomy, as did her sister Lynne who had also had ovarian cancer.

In April, 2013 she knew she was not well again and scans and blood tests at Bradford Royal Infirmary confirmed the cancer was back, this time in her pelvic area.

Now it has spread to her back lymph nodes and to one of her lungs.

"I want to help my cousin Kay and Stan. I've always been an organiser. It's keeping me going," she said.

Kay has also discovered she carries the BRCA1 gene and is having a double mastectomy in October.

"We must be a tough breed of women in our family. Doctors told her she would never get Stan back home but she proved them wrong. His brain messages and hands don't connect but we're hoping the stem cell treatment will get his tongue working again."

To find out more, go to avoiceforstan.org.